Tool used to quarry "clink stone"

The odd-shaped Naupaka blossom.

A View Into the Past
Kalahuipua'a is the name for the centerpiece of the Mauna Lani Resort and has been a favored resting place for centuries. Hawaiian royalty, including Kamehameha I, often took refuge from the stresses of travel by stopping at Kalahuipua'a.

The land was purchased by Sam Parker, grandson of Parker Ranch founder, John Palmer Parker, from the estate of King Lunalilo's father, Charles Kanaina in 1881. Sam's daughter, Eva, and her husband, Frank Woods, enjoyed the use of Kalahuipua'a and it was they who built the original Eva Parker Woods Cottage. In the 1930's, renowned Kama'aina sportsman, Francis Hyde I'i Brown, purchased Kalahuipua'a and continued to use the Eva Parker Woods Cottage as a place of rest. Now that Kalahuipua'a has become part of Mauna Lani Resort, it continues to be nurtured and perpetuated as a special place of ho'okipa.

The odd-shaped naupaka blossom is described as having once symetrical. According to Hawaiian legend, a maiden named Puna tore a flower in half out of anger with her lover. She then told him their love would not be renewed until he brought her one that was whole. Since the gods changed all of the flowers at that moment, he searched in vain, and finally died of a broken heart.

Mountains Reaching Heaven
The Hawaiian Islands, extending 1,500 miles across the Pacific, are merely the summits of an immense volcanic mountain range which stretches 3,500 miles along the ocean's floor to Kamchatka, Russia. Each individual volcano is formed by layer upon layer of lava rock, building beneath the sea for around 1 million years before emerging as an island.

Eruptive activity is focused above a "hot spot" in the earth's crust. As the Pacific plate slowly shifts about 4" each year in a northwesterly direction, growth of the range remains at its southernmost end. Although Kilauea is the youngest volcano visible in the archipelago, a new volcano, named Lo'ihi (long one), was discovered in 1978, 20 miles southeast of Hawai'i and 3,000 feet beneath the ocean on the flanks of Kilauea. Lo'ihi may rise above the sea in 10,000 to 100,000 years, becoming a new Hawaiian island.

The "Big Island," as Hawai'i Island is commonly called, presently holds the spotlight. At just over 4,038 square miles (as of this writing), it is the second largest volcanic island in the world, after Iceland; it has the earth's tallest and largest mountains, and a greater diversity of landscapes than any other location of equal size in the world. Grand in every way, the Big Island's "mountains reaching heaven", for which Mauna Lani Resort is named, offer a unique backdrop.